The State of my Ongoing Stories · 4:06pm Mar 1st, 2016
So I have a problem.
It's a problem I've had for a long time now, one that I should really control. A problem that I'm going to do my best to start fixing right about now.
That problem is all the stories I've left unfinished.
Right now, unless I'm counting incorrectly, I have seven incomplete stories. That's kinda unacceptable in my book. I blame this entirely on myself and my annoying tendency to drop what I'm doing with a story when another story idea comes to mind.
With this being said, I've devised a gameplan. I've devised gameplans in the past and not stood by them, but hopefully this time will be different!
Step One: I'm going to do my best to not start any new stories. I fully expect myself to break this rule before all of Step Two is finished, but I'm going to try my best not to. This is the primary reason behind me not having finished my other stuff, and this needs to stop. Unless something comes along that I think is way too amazing to put off, I will be fully concentrating on finishing older stuff.
Step Two: I'm going to try and concentrate on one story at a time until it's done. There will be one exception, which I'll explain in a moment. With Small Scale, I discovered that I do have the level of concentration and determination to walk into a story and do nothing else writing-wise until it's complete. Granted, my level of inspiration and production for Small Scale was an anomaly for me, and I'm not expecting to get to that level again (though it'd be nice!) but any improvement is welcome.
So, as stated earlier, I have a whole bunch of incomplete stories. Here's a list of all of them and an update on where they fall in this new plan.
Hood Rat: Of my incomplete stories, this is the one I want to finish most. I've targeted it as my next story to complete, and I'm actually already about 1700 words into the next chapter. Hopefully that should be out within a few days, and then I'll be getting to work on the next chapter after that.
Excess: This one is right after Hood Rat in terms of what I want to work on. Unless I change my mind, this is likely what I'll be getting to after Hood Rat.
Sober Companion: I'm at a strange place with this one. I do want to finish it, and when I made a post a while back asking which of my incomplete stories people wanted me to work on next (I.e. One of those other times I tried to buckle down and do what I'm doing now but failed), this was the story that won. It has its supporters, but I personally have trouble working on it for some reason. I actually started a new chapter of it a while back, but that's stuck at like 300 words and this was a while ago. I have a difficult time finding inspiration for it, but I still very much want to continue it. I might try to go for this after Excess.
Scoot Pilgrim: This one might unfortunately be a bit grander of an idea than I think I can finish. However, I still want to try. This one is in limbo, but looks somewhat likely to be returned to.
The Curiously Colorful Case of Chroma Splash: This one is a sentimental favorite, but has kind of the opposite problem that Sober Companion does, in that I have inspiration to work on it but I don't know it people care. I realize that it's a story about an OC and there's some stigma behind that (as well as behind any canon/OC story with a romance tag), but I'm left wondering if people are interested at all. If you are, please let me know! There's a small chance I might push this as the next to work on after Hood Rat instead of Excess, but we'll see.
Booty Call: I really wanted to finish this sooner, and actually have a good 1000 or so words ready for the next chapter, but I haven't really been in the mood to write clop recently. This will be finished, as I really wanted to get it done, but I'm not sure where it'll fall on the schedule.
May the Best Rut Win!: This one was a goofy idea and I'm not sure if I have the inspiration to return to it. It's being left as questionable, but we'll see if I can get back to it. Why do I have so much trouble finishing Appleshy clop when Appleshy is my OTP? Though this one's more suggestive than actual clop, but my point still stands.
Sugarcoat Interferes in Pony History: This is the exception. This will be updated whenever I can find the time, but considering all the other writing I have to do (and all those pesky non-writing things like work, social activity, and sleep), it might be tough. I'll try to get some of these done between chapters of the other stuff.
That should cover everything. Hopefully I'll actually finish all this old stuff sooner than later!
Advice: Don't try to force yourself to do things this way. That isn't how creative writing works. I've tried to do this, and it never ends well.
The only thing you can do reliably and consistently is write what you're in the mood to write. It is, after all, a hobby. That you do for the enjoyment. If you start trying to force writing out of some sense of obligation, you're going to start feeling resentful toward your own stories. And then you'll get blocked, lose interest, and end up doing nothing productive.
I speak from years of experience.
Looking forward to more Hood Rat. Take all the time you need, though... you should be enjoying writing it, not feeling like it is a chore.
I KNOW THAT FEEL